Wishful Thinking
by Akatsuki210
Summary: Yuko once said that the burden of taking a life is so heavy that it can crush a person, and one shinobi knows that better than anyone. Look out, hitsuzen: Uchiha Itachi has a wish. One-shot, spoilers for the Naruto manga.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Naruto, xxxHolic_, or any of the characters, locations, etc. in either series.

**Warning:** This story contains spoilers for the _Naruto_ manga.

* * *

**Wishful Thinking**

Yuko raised her head from the book she was reading. Just outside the gate leading into her property, where the boundary between her shop and rest of the universe lay, she could feel a presence. And not just any presence, but the presence of someone capable of perceiving the shop. _A customer, then_.

"Uh...Itachi-san, why are you staring at a vacant lot?" Kisame looked at his partner inquisitively. The two of them had been walking through one of the many tiny, no-name towns that dotted the countryside on their way back from a mission, when Itachi suddenly stopped in his tracks and began scrutinzing a piece of property on the left-hand side of the road. It was enclosed by a fence that looked like it would fall down if you breathed on it. Within the fence was a vacant lot overgrown with tall grass and weeds. It formed a dramatic contrast to the shops on either side of it, which were, if not exactly prosperous-looking, at least well-kept.

Itachi continued squinting at the vacant lot for a few seconds, then turned back to Kisame. "Go on ahead. I will meet up with you at the inn later."

Kisame was puzzled, but shrugged nonchalantly anyway. He had long since stopped trying to figure his partner out. "Okay," he replied, then wandered off in search of some lunch.

* * *

Staring at the property he had noticed earlier, Itachi saw something very different than Kisame did. The fence was sturdy and well-made. Inside, a manicured lawn surrounded a quaint, somewhat old-fashioned house with a large porch at the front. A neat stone path led from the gate up to the front door of the house. What had attracted Itachi's attention was the unusual chakra that surrounded the place. This wasn't a ninja village, and he hadn't sensed the presence of any other shinobi upon their initial entry into the town. But this house--no, the entire property--emanated an overwhelming chakra that made his skin tingle. It wasn't just the size of the chakra, either--its very nature was fundamentally different from any other chakra Itachi had ever encountered. His interest had been piqued even further when Kisame had referred to the property as "a vacant lot." How had his partner failed to notice the neatly-kept lawn, the stone path, the charming little house? Or had he simply been unable to see them? And if so, why? His Sharingan detected no genjutsu or other concealment techniques.

Itachi stepped through the gate and began walking calmly up the path towards the house. He remained alert, being prepared for the possibility that this was some kind of trap.

He got halfway up the path before the front door of the house burst open and two small children ran up to him. "Yuko-san, we have a customer!" one of them exclaimed gleefully.

"A customer!" the other echoed in an identical cheerful voice.

Each child seized one of Itachi's wrists, and they began dragging him towards the house. Itachi's ninja training kicked in, and he tried to pull away, only to discover that both children had a grip of iron. He tried to lift them off the ground, but couldn't seem to budge them. He focused a fearsome, red-tinged glare on them, but they only giggled. "The customer has funny eyes!"

_What in Kami-sama's name __**are**__ these children?_ As they continued pulling him up the path, Itachi became aware of something that made his blood run cold. Neither of the children had any chakra at all. _All_ living things--civilians, ninja, animals, even plants--had a chakra signature. But these two had none whatsoever. That could mean only one thing: they might be walking and talking, but they weren't alive. "What are you?" he asked them, carefully keeping any traces of fear out of his voice.

"We are Maru and Moro! We are Yuko-san's assistants!" the children chorused in unison.

Well, _that _was a completely unenlightening answer.

* * *

They had reached the porch, and the two not-quite-alive children tugged Itachi relentlessly through the front door. He tried to pause outside to remove his sandals, but they yanked him through the door without giving him time to stop. Somehow, he ended up barefoot anyway.

Once inside, Maru and Moro finally released Itachi's wrists, and he found himself in a small but tasteful foyer. A young man with dark hair and glasses was sweeping the floor. Itachi noticed right away that the boy's eyes were mismatched. One was a bright, vivid green, but the other looked faded and washed-out. _Is he blind in one eye?_ Itachi wondered.

The boy bowed towards Itachi and said, "My name is Kimihiro Watanuki. Welcome to Yuko-san's shop. I'm sure Yuko-san will be out in a minute."

Itachi returned the bow. "My name is Uchiha Itachi. Tell me, who are these children, and why can't I sense any chakra from them?"

From the doorway leading to the main part of the house, a placid female voice answered, "They are Maru and Moro, and you cannot sense any energy from them because they have no souls." The owner of the voice was a tall, slender woman with long, jet-black hair. She had an elegant bearing, and was wearing an elaborate kimono embroidered with a pattern of birds in flight. "I am Yuko, proprietor of this shop. What is your wish?"

Setting aside the question of the soulless assistants for the moment, Itachi responded, "I noted that your shop possesses a strange chakra. I wished to investigate. Are you a shinobi?" Yuko's chakra was very odd as well. It possessed the same quality of _strangeness_ as the shop itself...and Itachi couldn't quite believe how powerful it was. Anyone with this much chakra could probably take on the whole Akatsuki and win, if she wanted to. Which just made it that much more important to figure out what the hell was going on here.

"The energy of my shop is different from what you are used to because it is not native to your world. But I mean no harm to you or to anyone else in this universe. In fact, the only reason the shop is here at all is because you needed it to be here."

Itachi's eyes widened slightly--his version of an incredulous gasp. "Because _I_ needed it to be here? I wasn't even aware of its existence until a few minutes ago."

Yuko smiled enigmatically. "Not on a conscious level, no. But you have a wish that is embedded deeply in your soul. It's a wish so powerful that it's been consuming you from the inside out for years. The power of the human will is something that should never be underestimated. If a person whose will is strong enough needs to enter my shop, he will find it. It doesn't matter what time or place the customer inhabits--if he truly needs the services of my shop, he will find it. My shop is here in this place at this time so that you would be able to find it. So I will ask you again: what is your wish?"

"Every person has many things that they desire," Itachi replied slowly. "Everyone desires things such as health, prosperity, the love of someone they care for. No one has just one single wish."

"That is true, but what I mean by 'wish' is not these simple human desires. I mean one single transcendant wish that lies behind everything you think and say and do. One thing that you would give up almost anything to obtain. It is not merely something you _want_, but rather something you _need_. _What is your wish, Uchiha Itachi?_"

Yuko had moved closer to Itachi as she spoke, so that now she was standing toe-to-toe with him. She stared into his eyes, their faces only inches apart. Watanuki found himself feeling vaguely uncomfortable. There was something about the new customer that he didn't like. It was something like the feeling he got in the presence of a spirit, but not exactly the same. _I feel like he doesn't belong here, somehow. Could he be from another world, like that group that came to the shop one time?_ Or maybe it was just the blood-red eyes.

Unlike most people, Yuko didn't make the slightest attempt to avoid Itachi's sanguinary gaze. It was something he wasn't used to--even the other Akatsuki members were wary of making direct eye contact. Concealing his hands in the long sleeves of his Akatsuki garb, Itachi discreetly formed a series of seals. As he continued staring into Yuko's eyes, images and words rose in his mind. There was much that Yuko kept hidden, but what he saw was enough to give him a sense of her character. Like him, she had spent much of her life with her hands tied by fate. Like him, she had been forced to watch people she cared about get hurt in order to ward off a greater evil. And like him, she was, at heart, a good person.

Finally, Itachi blinked and looked away. "Some time ago, I faced a terrible choice," he said in a voice so low that Watanuki could barely hear it. "In the years since, I have come to believe that I chose wrongly. I wish...that I had found another way. I wish I had found a way to save _all_ those I loved."

Yuko graced Itachi with another of her enigmatic smiles. "For me to grant your wish, it will require me to alter the past. That is not an easy thing to do--the price will be high."

"I am prepared to pay it." Itachi's face was set in a stony expression of resolve. But behind that, Watanuki saw something else--the man was _tired_.

"I require the power within your eyes."

Itachi nodded wordlessly. Watanuki had the impression that under normal circumstances, the peculiar customer would have objected strenuously to this proposal, but some kind of understanding had clearly been reached during the time when the two of them had seemed to be searching each other's minds. The man might not exactly _trust_ Yuko--_You'd have to be a fool to trust that conniving woman completely!_--but he seemed satisfied that she at least wouldn't use his payment to destroy the world or something equally horrible. He felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked down to see Maru and Moro standing beside him. They pulled him to the treasure room, where they pointed towards a delicate glass ball perched on a high shelf. "The power in that guy's eyes must be something special, if it's a fair price for something as big as changing the past," Watanuki muttered as he carefully lifted it down.

"It is not the power itself that is the payment, but the cost of that power," Yuko's voice said from close beside him. Watanuki jumped, only to see that the voice was coming from Maru and Moro.

"You know it's really creepy when you talk through them like that, right?"

Yuko ignored this comment. "The power that Itachi-san possesses can only be obtained by taking on a horrific burden. If he gives me that power as payment, we will have access to it without having had to carry the burden that usually comes with it. In other words, it will allow us to bend the rules a little. _That_ is why it is an adequate price. The magical power alone, while substantial, would not have been enough."

When Watanuki returned to the main room, Yuko reached towards Itachi's face with one hand, and he closed his eyes. Her fingertips rested on the closed eyelids, and Watanuki could see a red light gathering around them. It glowed and pulsed, weaving around the Time-Space Witch's fingers. Maru and Moro nudged Watanuki towards the pair, and he carried the glass ball silently over to Yuko. She lowered her fingertips from Itachi's face and gently brushed them against the ball. The red light seeped from Yuko's hand into the depths of the sphere, where it swirled like mist.

Itachi opened his eyes, and Watanuki was startled to see that the scarlet color had disappeared from them. Now they were a deep ebony. With a gasp, Watanuki realized that the ninja's clothes had altered too. The black-and-red cloak was gone; in its place was a green vest with a fan-shaped emblem pinned to it. He was still wearing the metal plate across his forehead, but the scratch that had previously marred the symbol printed on it was no longer evident. And there was something else, too, beyond just the clothes. That tired look in the man's face was gone. The lines under his eyes even seemed shallower than they had been before.

"Your wish is granted," Yuko said softly.

Itachi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "It cannot be that easy."

"Oh, it wasn't _easy_. Nevetheless, it is done. You found another way. You are now the head of Konoha's police force, your father having retired about a year ago. Achieving that position is an impressive accomplishment for one who never managed to awaken the Sharingan. Except for a few members who have died of old age or in battle, your clan is alive and vibrant. Your brother still adores you, and is currently preparing to take the Jounin Exam with his two teammates. This is not to say that there aren't dangers. Akatsuki is managing quite well without you, and Orochimaru is still a threat. But the choice you made has been reversed. Your wish is granted."

The corners of Itachi's lips quirked upwards the tiniest bit. It was a very small smile, but still unmistakably a smile. "Many thanks, Yuko-san." He bowed deeply, then turned and walked out of the shop.

* * *

"...He looks different," Watanuki commented after Itachi had gone.

"How so?"

"He looks as if...as if he'd been carrying some great weight for a really long time, and now it's gone."

"Do you remember what I told you once about what happens when you take the life of another human being?"

"You said that it creates a terrible burden, one so heavy that it can crush you."

"...Yes."

* * *

Kisame stared into his glass of sake and stifled a groan. Deidara had been blathering on about his art for the past fifteen minutes, and showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. _Why couldn't I have gotten a partner who can keep quiet for more than five minutes at a time?_

A strange feeling washed over him then, something almost like _deja vu_. For just an instant, he felt as though he remembered having a partner who was quiet and calm and reserved, one who never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary. But that was ridiculous--Deidara was the only Akatsuki partner Kisame had ever had.

* * *

"Hey! Hey, Sasuke, Sakura-chan, wait up!" Naruto charged up to Sasuke and Sakura, nearly knocking them down in his enthusiasm.

"We were starting to think you weren't coming," Sakura admonished. "Why are you so late?"

"Yes, you're getting to be as bad as Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke agreed.

"Hey, I'm late because of you, you know! Your little sister ran up to me and gave me some kind of good-luck gift for you! She wanted to give it to you before you left, but she overslept, so she was running around the village looking for anyone who knew you." Naruto reached into his pocket and pulled out a brand-new, shiny kunai with the kanji for "Luck" etched into it. There was a message attached to it, wishing Sasuke good fortune in the exam.

As Sasuke pulled the tag off the kunai and slipped it into his weapons holster, he felt overcome by the oddest sensation. It was a momentary intuition that things used to be different, somehow. For just a second, he felt as though he were dreaming. He expected to wake up any minute, and realize that all of this--the upcoming Jounin Exam, his partnership with Naruto and Sakura, the gift from his younger sister--was gone. And for an instant, he couldn't remember what his sister looked like.

Then he shook off the feeling. Things were the way they had always been. His family was one of the most prestigious in Konoha, his team functioned like a well-oiled machine (well, not exactly, but they _functioned_, at least), and he was about to become a Jounin. Life had never been any different.

Had it?

* * *

**A/N:** Because Itachi deserves a happy ending, dammit!

I know that in the _xxxHolic_ universe, you can't bring back the dead. I hope I managed to convey clearly that what Yuko's doing isn't exactly bringing the Uchihas back--she's changing the timeline so that they never died in the first place. We saw Syaoran and Co. alter one world's past in _T_s_ubasa_, so I figure that kind of manipulation is permissible under whatever rules Yuko operates by.

Thanks for reading!


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